If you are going to work with kids on self regulation it is impossible to learn how to self regulate if no one has regulated you which means we have to do it for them or to them first before we expect it of them. That also means you, as a parent or care-giver, need to regulate too. For example, no child is going to come up to you after a situation and say, ‘well next time I think in order for me to have a better outcome maybe I should think of how I spoke and behaved, what the non-verbal cues were of the people involved, and how that affected the outcome of a situation’. You as a parent or care-giver need to direct their behavior which is the foundation of regulation.
The first thing that needs to be understood before you can learn to regulate is to understand your feelings and how your feelings affect your emotions which in turn affect how you behave. This goes for parents, care-givers and children. If you want to learn about that go to our last blog titled ‘How-to Teach Kids to Communicate Their Feelings’ so you can create a safe and healthy environment for this.
Here’s where it gets complicated, which is why we created our avatars and essentially why Lakunakai exists.
If you’ve had or your child has had a traumatic experience, and the nervous system isn’t healed, you are working uphill against the nervous system. The brain physically changes and one of those changes is to the amygdala so any trigger, flashback, ruminating thought, a fear - that will often throw you or your child back into the fight-flight-freeze response and remember this is an automatic response so you can’t control it. In order to help pull yourself out of trauma and its incredible grip you need to work slowly at what we believe are the four fundamental skills to regain control of your nervous system which will allow you to regain control over some of your feelings that affect your emotions which affect your behavior.
If you are not aware, the amygdala is most known to control fear which is why we started all of our avatar work in creating our Black Leopard. Yes, it’s 100% unique to Lakunakai and began with a hand drawn sketch by our Founder. And, yes, we are incredibly proud of it but most importantly of the role it has played in helping our child overcome her trauma.
In upcoming blogs we are going to discuss how Lakunakai’s Black Leopard helps you to be brave and to use your five senses so - please join us - we’d love that.
-The Lakunakai Team